SOLVED DS4243 Disk Shelf

[Kalsto]

Is anybody out there using a DS4243 (just the shelf) for their FreeNAS setup?

I've got a shelf that is working, but has a warning light on it. I'd like to gain access to the cli to see what's going on, but I don't have a netapp controller (the shelf is plugged in to an LSI 9201-16E in an HP server). Is this possible? Is there a different way to access the troubleshooting information on this shelf that anybody has discovered?

 

[Chris Moore]

Is this something you have been using and it recently developed an error or is it something you newly acquired that has had an error from the start?
Please also give us a full description of what you are using and how it is connected. You can upload photos to the forum if that will help with clearly describing the situation because we can't really troubleshoot it without knowing what the hardware is. Also, in this case, it could be down to how it is connected.

 

[Kalsto]

This is a recent acquisition from eBay to step into a bigger/better NAS world.. and yes, it's had the troubleshooting light on since I got it (didn't notice in the ebay screenshots that it was showing there also). I did notice while setting it up that a couple of the slots don't seem to work, or at least, the lights on them don't light up.. but if I move those drives to other slots, they light up and are detected in FreeNAS.

I've got an HP DL180 Gen6 server with an LSI 9201-16E HBA with v20.00.06.00 of the firmware connecting via a 3ft QSFP > SAS cable. I've got a single gig NIC on the HP connected to my Procurve switch (I plan on looking at aggregating links for iSCSI presentation to my ESXi host in the near future).
I've got FreeNAS 11.1 release running off a 32Gb Kingston Traveler USB 3 drive.

Let me know if there's anything else that might be beneficial to this discussion, and thanks for the quick reply! :)

 

[Chris Moore]

lsi 9201-16E HBA with v20.00.06.00

I think there might be a newer firmware for that, but I don't think that is the issue.
You are just running the one interface cable from the SAS card to the disk shelf?
Are both controller cards in the disk shelf?
Are both power supplies installed and connected to power?
All fans running?

 

[Kalsto]

That was the latest I could find, but the shelf gives the warning symbol with/without cables plugged in.
One interface cable from the shelf going into the lsi card.

Yes, it has 2 iom3 cards.
There are 4 power supplies in this ds4243, but I have just two powered at the moment, fans on those two supplies are running, but I haven't opened the shelf to see if the internal fans are working.

 

[Chris Moore]

There are 4 power supplies in this ds4243, but I have just two powered at the moment, fans on those two supplies are running, but I haven't opened the shelf to see if the internal fans are working.

With only some power supplies receiving power, the shelf could think that the other two are failed. Have you tried putting power to all the power supplies?

 

[Kalsto]

With only some power supplies receiving power, the shelf could think that the other two are failed. Have you tried putting power to all the power supplies?

Not with drives in the shelf.. I'll move some things around and try that tomorrow. In my reading, the shelf should still power everything with just 1 psu plugged in.. but it's worth a shot!

 

[Kalsto]

So plugging in all 4 psu's cleared the warning light.. even though the drives were all functioning, it was obviously reporting that they weren't plugged in. Thank you for that suggestion Chris!

I'd still be curious if it's possible to gain access to the shelf CLI the way you can with a NetApp controller on it, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part.

There are definitely (at least) 3 slots that are non-functioning though. I just tested it by moving drives back into those bays with all 4 psu connected. I'll have to factor that in to my configuration stage to make sure I make the most use of the hardware as I can. That's a different conversation, though.. I'll try and do some more reading on the forum and figure out the best performance/capacity balance for my requirements.

Thank you again for your suggestion Chris - I'm surprised it was that easy. :)

 

[Chris Moore]

I'd still be curious if it's possible to gain access to the shelf CLI the way you can with a NetApp controller on it, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part.

There are two Ethernet ports on the back of the IOM, marked with a square and a circle. Those are the ACP (alternate control path) ports and they get an IP address, but I don't know how this unit might be configured. The ACP is a kind of private network between the management node and the disk shelf. I imagine that the communication is something like telnet, but I can't find any reference on it.

 

[Kalsto]

Yeah - I know ACP is designed to be plugged directly in to the NetApp appliance... not sure if there's a way around that. I'll see if I can do some sniffing to see what kind of information is passing along the wire.

Thanks again for your assistance Chris - I'm doing a burn-in test on the drives now to make sure I can trust the drives for at least a few months. ;-)

 

[MasterTacoChief]

You might find this interesting:
http://www.plocmstart.com/index.php...drive-shelf-into-a-vendor-generic-jbod-array/

I've also discovered that if you use these alternate controllers, only the top controller will recognize SATA drives (probably because they are single channel). SAS drives are seen by either controller.

 

[Chris Moore]

Yeah - I know ACP is designed to be plugged directly in to the NetApp appliance... not sure if there's a way around that. I'll see if I can do some sniffing to see what kind of information is passing along the wire.

Thanks again for your assistance Chris - I'm doing a burn-in test on the drives now to make sure I can trust the drives for at least a few months. ;-)

Did you find out more about this?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

You might find this interesting:
http://www.plocmstart.com/index.php...drive-shelf-into-a-vendor-generic-jbod-array/

I've also discovered that if you use these alternate controllers, only the top controller will recognize SATA drives (probably because they are single channel). SAS drives are seen by either controller.

Thanks, great information!


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk